23 November 2010

This is an interesting story about how the efforts to plug the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico were affected by one single photograph. It is a nice look into how complex processes can be shaped by the smallest inputs, and this includes major events like the oil spill and the financial crisis. This is an interesting excerpt:

Before the cap was put in place, officials had established pressure levels that would tell them whether everything was OK, there was trouble and the cap had to be removed immediately, or whether it was a wait-and-see situation. The pressure readings were in the wait-and-see zone, but political appointees discussed it further and there was a push to remove the cap. Coast Guard Admiral Kevin Cook urged officials to give the cap more time, then Hsieh's analysis swayed them.To Paul Fischbeck, a professor of decision science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, this part of the report was scary."It became a political decision that they didn't want to risk having this big blowout," said Fischbeck, who wasn't part of the commission. "You set up a logical reasonable process and in the heat of the moment all these factors creep in and it pulls you off what you had logically decided to do. And that is very dangerous when it happens."